


Trick of the Eye

by Nokomis



Category: Outlander - Diana Gabaldon, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 22:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young Ian sees something frightful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trick of the Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Voyager and sometime pre-film for PoTC.

The _Bruja_ had only berthed one night at Tortuga, and the lads had been left below deck.

Ian had squirmed free enough to peer out one of the portholes. What he could see of the island was teeming with activity, guns firing and whores braying out their prices and services. He thought of sweet Mary back in Scotland, tried to imagine her yelling out the things these whores did, but couldn’t. The pirates on shore here were as uncouth as the bawdiest tales that Fergus had managed to tell him when his mam wasn’t about, and every once in a while he’d catch a glimpse of a familiar sailor, one of the men who’d captured him and dragged him across this ocean for....

He didn’t know what reason, but he knew it couldn’t be anything good. 

He watched the spectacle on land with wide eyes anyhow - it had been a long journey and it was shocking to see something that wasn’t the ocean - when a ship sliding into harbor silent as death caught his attention.

It wasn’t so flashy as the other ships. It was black, sails and all, and looked like something out of a nightmare.

A shiver ran down Ian’s spine, and he gripped into the splintered wood around the porthole even tighter, trying to angle his head to catch a better glimpse.

The pirates aboard that ship were scurrying around preparing to pull into port, unremarkable. Except...

It must have been a trick of the eye - his mam had always scolded his way of imaginin’ things - but for a second Ian could swear that the crew turned into demons, just like the ghostly looking ship ought to have crewing it. All rotting flesh and bones and ragged, decaying clothes...

Terrible things. 

It must have just been the moonlight, Ian told himself, and the fog, just like back home when he’d been just a bairn and convinced himself that there were foul fiends lurking in the fog that settled around Lallybroch. Except this wasn’t Scotland, and when Ian closed his eyes he could see the frightful things, unlike anything he’d ever seen. They looked, he realized with a jolt, just like the man he’d killed had sounded when he screamed. Horrible as a cursed thing.

He dared another glance at the ship, but it’d pulled back into the shadows and he could only make out the sense of motion and those ragged sails, black against even the shadows.

When the other lads asked what he’d seen out there, he told them only of the whores and the bawdy pirates.

No sense scaring them with demons that might not exist.


End file.
